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It’s a smartphone app that lets you make and receive calls without the usual charges.

“We can talk for free,” he explains by email.

In 1990, as one half of the Oakland A’s Bash Brothers, Canseco signed a $23.5 million contract over five years to become the highest-paid player in baseball history. Today, he is worried about his phone bill.

And if he’s going to talk about his attempts to try out in the Mexican Baseball League, he doesn’t want to pay for an incoming long-distance call.

All but broke, Canseco, 47, is still hoping to make the cut with the Quintana Roo Tigres, an unaffiliated Triple-A minor-league team in Cancun, in an attempt to climb back to the majors a decade after he was unceremoniously released by the Chicago White Sox following a remarkable — though steroid-tainted — 17-year career.

But Canseco’s tryout was abruptly cut short earlier this week when he admitted to taking medically-prescribed testosterone — a consequence of his prolonged steroid use — which is banned by the league.

Canseco isn’t the only cash-strapped former superstar trying to regain his relevance in a sport that no longer wants him. Terrell Owens and Allen Iverson know what he’s going through. They were superhuman athletes and bad-boy icons — the excessive, abrasive and unapologetic faces of their sports — and they have become the clichéd victims of that hubris, reduced to tryouts on the sporting world’s low-budget fringe.

Arena football. Indoor soccer. Mexican baseball.

Combined earnings of more than $300 million somehow spent, the faded superstars are desperate for the respect — and the cash — they once so easily commanded.

Iverson, once the most prolific scorer in the NBA, was recently offered a contract by an indoor soccer team in Rochester, N.Y., after a Georgia judge ordered him to pay an $860,000 jewellery debt. The player once known as The Answer, at 36, is apparently broke after making $154 million from basketball and another $50 million in endorsements, so the court commandeered his bank account to garnish his earnings.

Canseco’s tumble from the top has been long — including pitiful cash grabs, such as reality TV and prize fighting — and his cautionary tale is one we have heard before: Superstar athlete becomes millionaire, blows through money with extravagant lifestyle, bad investments and failed marriages, ends up bankrupt. Tyson and George Best to name just a couple.

But Iverson and Owens are the first of the modern-day, $100-million marquee athletes to go broke — and they have both done it within just a few years of their prime.

Even the logistics of it are hard to fathom: Owens, 38, would have had to spend an average of $15,000 a day throughout his career to use up all he had. That’s like buying a new Honda Civic every day for 15 years. Iverson would have had to buy two.

There’s no way to spend all that money without help.

Iverson reportedly travelled with a 50-person entourage — friends and family to whom he felt indebted for “keeping him alive” through his notoriously rough childhood and adolescence.

Professional athletes — like most people in the U.S. — were also hit hard by the real-estate bubble. Canseco walked away from his 7,300-square-foot California mansion, allegedly owing $2.5 million. Owens’ two luxury condos in Dallas — separated by only five kilometres — are in foreclosure and will soon be auctioned off.

Owens, recounting his financial disarray to GQ, had a long list of poor investments and made multiple accusations of people stealing money from him. He doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. “I don’t have no friends. I don’t want no friends. That’s how I feel,” he told the magazine.

Andre Mirkine, president and co-founder of the Sports Financial Advisors Association, says he once found it hard to believe whenever he heard a superstar athlete ending up broke. But Mirkine, who has been working in the niche market of providing financial advice exclusively to professional athletes for more than 10 years now, came to understand the causes to be relatively simple: excessive spending, risky investments and bad credit.

What it comes down to, he says, is the athlete’s lack of understanding of basic finance combined with an inability to foresee an end to their fame.

“You’ve got very young men — 18-, 19-, 20-year-old boys — who become instant millionaires, who are the king of every universe they live in, can do whatever they want and don’t think about the ramifications of fathering children out of wedlock or spending $30,000 at a club in Vegas in one night. Nobody explains to them that $30,000 invested wisely over 20 years could be $130,000.”

To illustrate his point, Mirkine recalled a meeting he had two years ago with a 10-year NBA veteran (whom he would not name) who was in his first year of a three-year, $30 million contract, which would likely be his last. The player was trying to buy a third property — he already owned his home and his mother’s home — but he was having trouble getting a mortgage.

Mirkine looked over the player’s financial statements and saw that the two properties the player already owned were highly leveraged, he had a credit score below 600 — mostly due to disputes with jewellery store owners — and he was making steep child-support payments to three former partners.

The player’s net worth was barely positive, Mirkine said, and he was only in the black because of the value he placed on six luxury cars and his jewellery, which Mirkine thought had dubious resale value. So he suggested to the player that instead of buying the third house he should focus on improving his credit score, take advantage of the next three years in guaranteed salary and work toward a more stable and comfortable retirement.

“Never heard from him again,” Mirkine says.

“It’s a combination of narcissism and fallibility,” says Paul Dennis, who teaches sport psychology at York University and the University of Toronto.

“All they think about is being in the moment, being on top of the world, being the go-to guy, being the best player on the team, and getting all the positive reinforcement and feedback and money that goes along with that.”

Superstar athletes quite simply have trouble imagining the end of their careers, says Dennis, who has worked with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors.

“Because they don’t ever think about it, they don’t prepare for it. And when the decision is not theirs to be made — when somebody else decides they’re not good enough any more — they’re in a downward spiral.”

When that happens, the player has not only lost their livelihood but also their entire identity, he says.

“The only way they know how to get that back is to play the game and they’re almost blind to the fact that they can’t play anymore. But they know no other way.”

Iverson, Owens and Canseco all insist they are not retired.

Iverson is reportedly considering trying out for a series of minor-league basketball teams — from the Caribbean to Turkey — in order to revive his once-storied career.

Owens is hoping NFL general managers take notice of his play with the Wranglers — he scored three touchdowns two weeks ago in a 50-30 win over the Wichita Wild — and are impressed enough to give him a tryout.

Canseco wants desperately to play with the Tigres — last year’s champions of the Mexican league — but after the latest drug allegations his prospects look dim.

“I love the game and I just want to play,” Canseco told the Star over the crackly and intermittent Viber connection. “I think I’ve still got a couple good years left in me.”

If you can tolerate the grammar and spelling, @josecanseco is a fun read. The former big-league slugger who twice led the majors in home runs and once sent a towering moon shot into the upper deck of what was then called the SkyDome, tweets regularly on all things Canseco. He’s not the most eloquent with 140 characters, but he may be the most real — sometimes painfully so.

“If you c me in public come up to me and give me a hug ok,” he tweeted on Feb. 23.

The tone of his tweets ranges wildly. He can be boastful and then forlorn, proud then confessional, defiant then pleading. He challenges Mike Tyson and Shaquille O’Neal to prize fights, hands out virtual hugs to fans and begs Billy Beane for a job. He recently tweeted that he regrets writing (or “riting”) his best-selling steroid tell-all Juiced.

Here are some other notable tweets of late from the former Bash Brother:

“Maybe I was the babe Ruth of the 80’s”

Oct. 21, 2011, 1:26 p.m.

“Billy beane please give me a try out”

Jan. 27, 9:20 p.m.

“Looking forwrd to bp tomorrow and launching some bombs into the jungle”

Feb. 13, 6:38 p.m.

“Kenny powers has nothing on me”

Feb. 21, 8:35 a.m.

“bats are here bats are here !”

Feb. 28, 7:46 p.m.

“I wish I had a better way of showing you what I do everyday anyone have any ideas” (cont’d)

“Can anyone create a videocam I can strap to my body and wear even when I am playing”

Feb. 23, 3:55 p.m.

“Wow there is a black crow out side my window staring at me what does that mean”

Feb. 23, 4:22 p.m.

“home runs should not count if you lose and count doble if you win”

Feb. 24, 8:06 p.m.

“wish i had a time machine”

March 1, 2:48 a.m.

“There is nothing wrong with being at the bottom of the barrel as long as you bring everyone up”

March 6, 11:26 a.m.

“@TonyLaRussa boy did I mess up by writing that book tell big mac I am sorry”

March 12, 12:27 a.m.

“I am going to play baseball again even if I have to die trying.”

March 8, 9:43 a.m.

“You haters better start loving each other or I will personaly kick your ass.listen that's me knocking on your door”

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